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PEOPLE
When you are out of a job there is not much to do but fish or cut bait. It is not surprising, then, that Edward Heath, leader of Britain's out-of-power Conservative Party, competed the other day in the cod-fishing contest (entrance fee: five shillings) at the Broadstairs and St. Peter's Sea Angling Society Boat Festival. Puttering off down the Channel with some other contestants—a retired policeman, a greengrocer and an engineer—Heath managed to haul in 145 pounds 8 ounces of cod to win first prize, a large glass fruit bowl. Meanwhile, over in Sweden, another fisherman, Ingemar Johansson, was going at cod-catching more scientifically. The former heavyweight champion has bought himself a 130-foot trawler for 2.5 million Swedish kronor ($485,000). The fishhold is 115 feet long. By Ingo's standards, Ted Heath is small fry.
While Wife Brigitte Bardot was tripping barefoot by the Firth of Forth during the filming of her new movie and talking on her hotel's public phone in a have-to-be-seen-to-be-believed nightgown, Husband Gunther Sachs (below) was playing golf at North Berwick. It was a good thing every caddie south of St. Andrews was momentarily distracted. Sachs, outfitted in buckled town shoes, set off around the New Course carrying his own clubs and two dozen golf balls. If he did not find a lost ball quickly he would give up the search and take another. Not surprisingly, his score, as well as his handicap, remains a mystery. "He's a ground player," sniffed the clubhouse steward, one of the few to see Gunther swing. "He rarely seems to get the ball into the air at all."
The mayor's office refuses to comment, but rumor has it that New York's John Lindsay is no more than second string on the City Hall touch-football team. Despite an aggressive style in the season's opener in Central Park against the cast of The Mad Show, Lindsay was benched after one quarter. Wife Mary took over and immediately ran 30 yards around left end to rack up a first down, the only one in the game for City Hall. "Mrs. Lindsay got away with a lot," said one of the opposition. "We were afraid to touch her."
Rumanian Pianist Radu Lupu showed a great pair of hands in a basketball game in a Fort Worth gym last week, and he didn't show bad fingers two hours later when he played Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony and was acclaimed winner of the Van Cliburn International Competition. At that, his preconcert exercise seemed a bit nervy. A year ago, while playing goalie in a soccer game, he "caught the ball badly" and broke a finger. He couldn't touch a keyboard for six weeks.
Back at West Point from Vietnam after one year and four decorations (three Vietnamese Crosses of Gallantry, one bronze star with V for valor) is Captain Pete Dawkins, Army's 1958 All-America halfback. He spends ten hours in the classroom each week teaching four sophomore history courses, and two afternoons a week as an unofficial football coach. "I never taught formally before," says Rhodes Scholar Dawkins, "but in the Army you spend a lot of time teaching map reading, tactics and how to fire a machine gun. You develop a knack for instruction. But," concluded Dawkins, "I do not have any designs on being a permanent academician."
Disregard the Gallup Poll, the Harris Poll and that news report the other day that Eisenhower's black Angus bull brought more money per pound than L.B.J.'s at a Midwestern livestock sale. A more scientific measure of political popularity is the cough quotient. Engineers have recorded recent speeches of various politicians and "using electronic beeps, oscilloscopes and an illuminated computer" have counted the coughs in each man's audience. Richard Nixon registered 4.5 coughs-per-minute-per-100-people, Hubert Humphrey 4.0, George Romney 3.65, and Robert Kennedy 3.5, the lowest of all. The director of the experiment declared: "A political speaker who is a spellbinder doesn't have to worry about coughing. The more interested the audience, the less frequent the coughs." Said spellbinder Bobby: "The ratings are probably unreliable because I always try to speak to fit audiences."
After making a fortune in 19¢ ballpoint pens, Baron Marcel Bich has turned to a grander project, and he seems to have the backing of all France. He is out to win the America's Cup, that symbol of U.S. sailing superiority. Although a French challenge probably will not be officially made until 1970, the baron already has tested four model boats in the yacht basin that the French navy has put at his disposal. The manufacturer of Caravelle jets has assigned three engineers to work exclusively on masts and winches, and a Lyons textile firm that normally makes parachutes has agreed to furnish special sailcloth. The baron, meanwhile, steadfastly refuses to discuss his plans. "He has never granted an interview to a reporter," explained an aide, "and he is most unlikely ever to do so."
In training camps everything is wide open and people come and go, so Floyd Patterson has a habit of hiding things, even his change. Last month, before he left for London to fight Henry Cooper, he concealed a $35,000 crown (below) of gold, diamonds, rubies, ermine and pearls, which he had been given when he was heavyweight champion, in an airduct in the rafters of his brother's house in New Paltz, N.Y. Someone who must have known Floyd's habits broke into the house, tore up the walls, found the crown and made off with it. A few days later Patterson was robbed in London of $9,000 worth of rings. Neither theft has been solved. Patterson said last week he'd especially like the crown back, because "when I had it I would try it on occasionally to see if it still fit. I never had any trouble getting it off or on."
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